This invention relates to money handling in vendors and more particularly to a change return control for a money handler in a vendor.
A money handler for a vendor which accepts larger denomination moneys without proper control can be misused to function as a money changer. For example, in a vendor permitting transactions costing a nickel which vendor has a money handler which accepts nickels, dimes, quarters and one- through five-dollar bills, a customer wanting change could deposit a nickel plus the bill or coin he wanted changed. If the money handler included one of the current change control systems, the customer would get change for the desired bill or coin. If the bill were a five-dollar bill, for example, this would rapidly deplete the money handler's change bank. One solution to this problem is to not permit a vend if the required change is over a certain amount, say 95.cent.. But this would unduly restrict the transactions that the vendor would be capable of completing. For example, the customer with only a five-dollar bill would be unable to purchase any item costing less than $4.05. Clearly this is undesirable.
Another disadvantage of present systems in a money handler capable of handling a number of denominations of money concerns the "out of change" light. If the light is set to come on when the difference between the largest acceptable denomination of money and the lowest priced transaction exceeds the change available, many vends for which there is change available will not be made. For example, if the "out of change" light is set to come on when the change bank contains less than $4.95, vends requiring a lesser amount of change, such as 95.cent., will not even be attempted. On the other hand, setting the light to come on at 95.cent. is misleading. If the change bank contained only $1.00, the money handler could not make change for a five-dollar bill unless the price of the selected transaction was at least $4.00. Clearly such a situation is undesirable since change would not be available to complete most transactions, even though the "out of change" light would not be lit.